vgsmail - a QX Telecom Ltd service

geoff · Site Admin Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 686

I am currently experimenting with a very very new feature which I thought might be useful. It is still very much under-development, but if anyone is interested please let me know.

If you use MSN Messenger, add 'msn@vgsmail.com' to your buddy list. Then PM me with your MSN userid and your vgsmail userid, and I'll get you set up. Once I've done that, to send an SMS just send a message from the Messenger client to the vgsmail 'buddy' in the following format:

sms 07971123456 This is my message

or

sms myalias This is my message

Currently you will receive no response, but the message 'should' be queued. The message will also be cropped to the first 160 characters.

New features coming soon:

- Delivery reports via MSN
- Long messages

geoff · Site Admin Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 686

I have now added the commands 'help' and 'balance'... both pretty obvious.

After you have sent a message, you will now receive confirmation back that the message bas been dispatched. Delivery reports are coming sometime soon.

You should also now add your MSN userid to your account details on the vgsmail web-interface. Currently this will not completely automate sign-up for the MSN service, but I'm working on that. Just PM me when you're ready...

geoff · Site Admin Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 686

Ok, things should all be automatic now. All you need to do is add your MSN userid to the account details on your vgsmail account and within 5 minutes you will automatically get a request (from Messenger) to have the vgsmail server added to your buddy list. Just select 'yes' and you're away...

Geoff.

mwright · Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 109

Neat - it works.

I have it setup using my Jabber-on-wap interface!!
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Just a thought!

mwright · Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 109

I just had a thought!

Why not send a copy of ALL deliver/fail/queued messages to the MSN "channel" whether they were sent via MSN or not?
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Just a thought!

geoff · Site Admin Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 686

This is indeed my intention.

However, I am not sure what to do about emailed delivery reports: do I send them as well, or should it be an either/or thing? It might be annoying to get both; so I'm tempted to only send emailed delivery reports if the user is not logged in to Messenger.

Any thoughts?

Geoff.

mwright · Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 109

Not really sure until I see what happens!

I guess some options would be a good idea. Off the top of my head:-

1) All notifications to all MSN if available else email.
2) All notifications to email
3) MSN generated ones to MSN (if available else email), others to email.
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Just a thought!

mwright · Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 109

Have you been taking the "bot" offline occasionally?
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Just a thought!

geoff · Site Admin Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 686

I did restart the bot twice earlier today, but it was only offline for a couple of seconds each time. Have you seen it go offline for longer? According to my logs, it hasn't gone offline other than that.

I'll probably be rebooting it from time to time as I make more changes...

Geoff.

mwright · Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 109

Thats ok - my wap->jabber->msn interface sometimes does not recover properly when a bot goes offline and comes back. I need to fix that sometime!!
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Just a thought!

mwright · Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 109

Can I suggest a few commands?

hist - show last <n> message statii
send <n> resend message <n>
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Just a thought!

geoff · Site Admin Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 686

geoff · Site Admin Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 686

BTW:

sms mum,dad,brother,sister,447971123456 Hello everyone

will send the message to all 5 recipients.

mwright · Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 109

Sorry

hist commands shows something like:-

1) Me Delivered
2) David Queued
3) Bob Failed
.
.
.

Therefore:-

send 2

will send the message to bob again

(perhaps "resend" although that is longer!)

Perhaps also info <n> to show more info on the message?
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Just a thought!

geoff · Site Admin Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 686

There are now three new commands:

help

Just gives you a bit of help.

history N

This will give you a list of the last N (defaults to 5) messages you have send from your account. You need to type this before you can use the query and resend commands as the ID number for the history is important.

query number

This will give you a bit more information about the message you request.

resend number

This will resubmit a message for sending. As usual, you will be charged...

Example:

Geoff says: history 3
1) To: geoff Status: Failed
2) To: mum Status: Delivered
3) To: john Status: Waiting
Geoff says: query 1
Date: 23/06/04 18:13:51
To: geoff
Status: Failed
Text: this is another test
Geoff says: resend 1
Message 112389084271 queued for sending

As usual... all still under-development, so use at your own risk Smile

.